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Out in the Cold at Age 84: Wisconsin's Ruthelle Frank Fights for Her Right to Vote Ruthelle Frank, a resident of Brokaw, Wisconsin since her birth in 1927, has none of the accepted forms of photo ID under Wisconsin’s photo ID law which goes into effect at the February primary election. In order to get a state ID card, she needs to prove citizenship, but since she was born at home, she has never had a birth certificate. The state Register of Deeds, however, does have a record of her birth and can produce a birth certificate at a $20 cost. There’s one problem though — her maiden name (Wedepohl) is misspelled in the record. That record can only be amended by legal proceeding, and the combined fees will run Ruthelle potentially upwards of $200. The state will not waive any of these fees, and under the new law, if she cannot obtain a state ID card, Ruthelle will be sent away from the polls.
If you lost all your IDs and personal documents in a fire today, could you prove who you are? What if there was an election coming up and your state required you to present photo ID in order to vote? Could you figure it out in time? Do you know where to go? What forms and documents you need? Do you have the time and money to get it all done? In Wisconsin, it takes at least 3 types of proof to get a state ID card that can be used to vote. For most people, the combination of required documents is a certified copy of a birth certificate, a Social Security Card, and some proof of residency like a utility bill or government mail. But it takes ID to get ID. And, in some cases, it takes (A) ID and/or money to (B) get the ID required to (C) get the ID you actually need to vote. This obstacle course is leaving eligible voters discouraged and disenfranchised. Some photo ID proponents have repeatedly argued that the only people who lack photo ID are those who don’t vote anyway. False. Ruthelle, a sitting member of her village board, has voted in every election since 1948, the year in which Truman signed the Marshall Plan and NYC subway fares jumped from 5 to 10 cents. She is a longstanding participant in this democracy. And sadly, her story is in no way unique — every day, eligible voters are finding out that, under current law, they will not be able to vote in 2012 or will face numerous and significant hurdles on the road to making their voice heard. At age 84, Ruthelle is now serving as the lead plaintiff in the ACLU’s constitutional challenge to Wisconsin’s photo ID law. She’s fighting back because she believes no person should have to pay a cent or pass a bureaucracy-navigation test in order to vote. The U.S. Constitution agrees with her. Ruthelle’s disfranchisement is horrifically unjust, but she’s actually better prepared to deal with this than many voters without accepted photo ID, who are disproportionately low-income, elderly, and/or minority, and disproportionately marginalized. Despite Ruthelle’s physical disability (she is paralyzed on the left side of her body), she has family that can assist her, savings, education, and familiarity with both the electoral process and local government. Consider the eligible Wisconsin voter with few contacts, low or no income or savings, and much less education. Is that person any less a citizen of this country? That voter is at risk of losing his/her voice in Wisconsin and everywhere in the U.S. that photo ID laws have been enacted. But maybe you’d reply that most people have photo ID in America. Well, the Ruthelle Franks of the world want you to know that “most people” isn’t a democracy. Read more on the fight against voter suppression. Learn more about voter suppression: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: Ruthelle Frank, video, voter id, voter suppression, Wisconsin
Don't Shrink Our Democracy "The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government." — Chief Justice Earl Warren in Reynolds v. Sims This Saturday, December 10, the American Civil Liberties Union, along with our friends at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and many others, will march in the streets of New York City in support of our most fundamental American right of all — the right to vote. And next week, Attorney General Eric Holder will address the nation from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s library in Austin, Texas about the sanctity of voting rights in America. The power to choose who governs is one of the most dignified rights we share. When we vote, we are convening a national dialogue through which we decide our individual and collective futures. Yet throughout our history, we have excluded indispensable voices from this conversation. With great passion and intensity, African-Americans, women, and young people risked their lives for and eventually gained the right to vote. Once the initial barriers were lifted and we enshrined the expansion of this right in the Constitution, the powerful desire to exclude took on more insidious forms — poll taxes and literacy tests, coupled with grandfather clauses — all to eliminate “undesirable” voices. We saw those tactics for what they were and defeated them, too. But the battle over whose voices may be heard continues to today, only more sophisticated in its obfuscation. Some may readily believe that everyone owns a government-issued picture ID or that you should expend the effort and resources to obtain one if you truly were interested in voting or cared about our country. Others may believe that limiting voting opportunities to a 12-hour window in the middle of a work week is not an imposition on this seminal right. But make no mistake — those behind these regressive laws know what they’re doing; once you start digging even an inch beneath the surface, the suppressive effects of a purportedly innocuous law become breathtakingly clear. Voters throughout the country are forced to choose between putting food on the table and purchasing the “right” form of identification. A homeless man in Tennessee finally obtained his “free” photo ID, but only upon the intervention of a Congressional aide. As a result of these devastating laws, we are diminished as a nation and as people.
We do not have to accept the status quo. Come march with us this Saturday. And finally, tell the Department of Justice and Attorney General Holder that we will not accept a country that discriminates against those who want a stake in this nation’s future. Learn more about voter suppression: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: video, voter id, voter suppression
Alabama's Immigration Law Separates Long-Time Friends For 12 years, James Pilgrim has managed a mobile home park in the Birmingham, Ala. area, getting to know families who have lived there for years. Most of them are from Mexico, so he has taken part in a lot of their traditions. “When I have a birthday party generally they’ll provide a cake and the custom of the Hispanic people is to let you blow the candles out and when you do, they push your head into the cake,” he said, laughing. “So I’ve had cake all over my face. . . We’ve just been close. We go places together, we do things together.” But since parts of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, H.B. 56, took effect, Pilgrim said about 10 families have fled. The fear of racial profiling and other harmful aspects of the law forced them to leave for other states or Mexico, he said.
“You just want to stand there and cry,” he said, “watching people treated like this, where they had to run for their lives.” Most of the families have lived in the community for years, hold steady jobs and contribute to Alabama’s economy, Pilgrim said. He is concerned more families may leave soon because registrations for mobile homes must be renewed by Nov. 30, and many residents may not have the documents needed to register under the new law. As a small business owner, Pilgrim said he is very concerned about the law’s negative financial impact. Jefferson County, which is Alabama’s most populous county, this month declared bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. And Alabama has the 10th highest poverty rate in the nation, with more than 17 percent of the state’s residents living in poverty. A native of Georgia who has lived in Alabama since 1971, Pilgrim says he is strongly opposed to H.B. 56 and the chaos it has caused in his state. “It affects me in that some of them are just like my own family,” he said of the impacted families, “and my heart is broken to think that I might never see these people again.” Pilgrim is not alone. Bill Bounds, who manages a mobile home park in the Birmingham area, said a handful of Hispanic families fled the park since the law took effect. “One of them threw me their keys and said, “’Here, sell my home,’” he said. “(The law) has uprooted a lot of people and so many children. They left furniture and stuff they worked hard for.” Because the law allows police to check people’s immigration status based on “reasonable suspicion,” many families have been scared of getting pulled over because of the color of their skin. “They’re scared to drive, scared to go to the store,” Bounds said. “I had a lady ask me to go to the post office, a family I went to the grocery store for. And there are people who are afraid to go to the hospital. A lot of them are scared to death. I even had one family come to me and ask me if I’d adopt their daughter. They’re afraid if they get caught, she’d end up having to go to Mexico.” Bounds has lived in Alabama for about 40 years, and sees this law as a step backward into the state’s troubled past. “I think it’s going back to George Wallace days,” he said. “Alabama just shifted back 100 years since this law took effect.” Learn more about immigrants' rights: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
Some Families Flee, Others Stay Behind and Live in Fear Since parts of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, H.B. 56, took effect, many families have been fleeing the state in fear. Cineo Gonzalez, an Alabama resident and a father of two, talks here about those who left in a hurry, including families with children who are American citizens. "Their children are U.S. citizens and they are running away in their own country," said Gonzales, a taxi driver who has been receiving calls from many panicked families.
Others stayed behind, but their lives have been anything but normal. During a visit to Alabama last week, many families told me that they now live in constant fear and are scared to go to work, school or the grocery store. From small cities like Albertville to the capital of Montgomery and in between, many Hispanic residents said they are now afraid of getting stopped by the police because the law encourages racial profiling. "When the law passed, I didn’t work for a week," a landscape worker from Mexico told me. "I had fear because people said police will see your face and stop you, see you’re Latino." The worker, who lives in Montgomery and has been in Alabama for seven years, told me he tries to only drive to work now, and is even scared to do that. "We work to live," he said. "If we can’t work, we can’t eat and we can’t live." The law affects not only the undocumented, but many legal residents and citizens as well. One high school senior told me his three siblings — all U.S. citizens — are afraid they will be separated from their mother, who is an undocumented immigrant. "My mom just bought a home in May and she really doesn’t want to move," said the Birmingham area resident, who is 18. "She spent her whole savings trying to build this home for us." He was born in Mexico but has lived in the United States since he was a baby, most of it in Alabama. He is bilingual, gets good grades and has a part-time job after school. "They brought me here since I was one month old," he told me. "If I go back, I don’t know what I would do." Learn more about immigrants' rights: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: Alabama, hb56, immigrants' rights, video
For a Pioneering Jurist, Alabama Anti-Immigrant Law Is Spark for a New Civil Rights Struggle U. W. Clemon marched in demonstrations alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., worked on desegregation in Alabama and became the state's first African-American federal judge. He has seen great advancement of civil rights, but is very concerned about their present state. "We are at a point in American history where powerful forces are determined to turn back the clock on the tremendous progress we made in civil rights over the last 100 years," Clemon told me when I visited him recently in Birmingham. "And they've come very far in doing so." Clemon said that HB 56, Alabama's anti-immigrant law, exemplifies a new civil rights crisis. "The Alabama immigration law was designed to be the most severe, the harshest immigration law in the country," he said. "The design, purpose of it was to drive out people who don't look like us. In this instance it turned out to be Hispanics. Many of them, unfortunately, are American citizens, just as American as you and I."
A recent New York Times editorial that quotes Clemon calls HB 56 "the nation's most oppressive immigration law," and the accompanying slide show rightly calls the response to the law "a new civil rights movement." Parts of the law have been in effect for less than two months, but reports have indicated the legislation has encouraged racial profiling, deterred children from going to school and turned Alabama into a ‘show-me-your papers' state. The ACLU and a coalition of civil rights groups have been challenging the law in the courts. While the legal battle is ongoing, the harm on the ground has continued. Over the last few days, a mother of two told me she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night in fear of what could happen if she is separated from her children as a result of the law. An immigrant from Mexico told me he now only goes to the grocery once every couple of weeks because he is afraid he will be pulled over due to racial profiling. A high school senior who was brought here as a one-month-old baby said this country is the only home he has ever known, and is scared his family may be forced to leave. Clemon, now in his late 60s, said the stories emerging now out of Alabama are disturbing. He now works at a law firm after serving nearly 30 years as a federal judge. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, which turned out to be Alabama's most controversial federal judgeship. He told me how frustrating it is to see his state pass a law that tramples on civil rights that he and others fought to secure. "In terms of the basic mean-spirited attitude, it's pretty much the same now as it was then — first it was against blacks and now it's against Hispanics," he said, adding people should speak up against it. "It's very disturbing and that's why I can't go quietly into the night." Learn more about immigrants' rights: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: Alabama, hb56, immigrants' rights, immigration discrimination, racial profiling, video
Singled Out in Alabama Schools A New York Times editorial this weekend calls out Alabama’s attorney general, Luther Strange, for stonewalling the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) attempt to look into possible civil rights violations since Alabama’s anti-immigrant law went into effect. The DOJ, following up on reports that students were being bullied in the classroom and that parents were keeping their children out of school, asked 39 superintendents for information on student absences and withdrawals since the start of the academic year. To this, Strange said no, challenging the DOJ’s legal authority to investigate. While the DOJ starts its investigation, the ACLU has been on the ground since September when the law went into effect, tracking the impact of the law on farms, families and schools. What we’re finding, particularly in schools, is evidence of racial profiling and discrimination. In a video released today, Cineo Gonzalez, a Birmingham taxi driver, recounts how — in front of the entire class — his daughter, along with one other Latino student, received a Spanish-language pamphlet explaining the law. When Gonzalez asked why the teacher gave the document to his daughter, the principal told him that they only gave the document to children who looked like weren’t from there.
Gonzalez’s daughter was born in Alabama. She follows Alabama college football, is an A student and dressed up as a good witch for Halloween. Gonzalez’ daughter was racially profiled — an occurrence that has become too common in the wake of this law. We will continue to report our observations and findings on the ground in Alabama. You can follow our coverage at: www.aclu.org/crisisinAL. Learn more about racial profiling: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: Alabama, hb56, racial discrimination, racial profiling, video
Help Wanted: Farmers' Plight Proves Alabama's H.B. 56 Was Never About Creating Jobs Since Alabama’s draconian racial profiling law went into effect, farmers have been crying out for help. Alabama’s H.B. 56 requires state and local police officers to detain and investigate people based on “suspicion” that they may be undocumented immigrants, promoting the use of racial profiling and raising concerns about the detention of citizens and legal residents. H.B. 56 even authorizes the Alabama Department of Homeland Security to hire and maintain its own immigration police force. Many farmers have opposed the law from the start — knowing that it would lead to their predominantly Latino workforce fleeing for fear of harassment and mistreatment. Members of the Alabama state legislature who supported and passed H.B. 56 pegged it as a jobs bill, claiming it would open up jobs for Americans. They promised concerned farmers that they would get the workers they needed. But that hasn’t been the case. Since the law went into effect on Sept. 28, crops have been rotting in the fields as Latino workers have fled for fear of being harassed under the new law. And hardly any Americans have applied to refill those positions. Here’s one farmer’s tragic story, who said that Sen. Beason promised “Alabamians would take these jobs.”
Today, an editorial in the Washington Post pointed out that what’s happening in Alabama is “laying bare the nation’s hypocrisy over unskilled immigrants, whose legal entry into the country is blocked in most cases even though their labor remains much in demand.” The editorial continued, “Of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, some 7 million are in the job force. The idea that they can be deported or replaced en masse with jobless U.S. workers is far-fetched. That’s the message that Alabama farmers have been giving their elected leaders, so far to little avail.” The Post calls on Congress and the federal government to fix this problem by enabling workers to legalize their status and put them on a path to citizenship. That would be true immigration reform. It’s now abundantly clear that H.B. 56 was never about jobs, but rather a way to target certain groups of people simply based on how they look. Learn more about immigrants' rights: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: Alabama, hb56, video, workers' rights
Stop Domestic Violence in Its TracksIt is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a time when many of us ask: what can we do about the injustice of intimate partner abuse? More than 10 years ago, Jessica Lenahan faced just that question when the police failed to respond to her pleas for help, resulting in the deaths of her three children. Following that tragedy, she took the issue of police response to domestic violence to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that she had no constitutional right to enforcement of her restraining order, and then to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
In August, the IACHR found the U.S. government responsible for human rights violations against Jessica and her three deceased children. The IACHR made clear that protection from domestic violence is a human right — not a private issue. In this video, Jessica describes her landmark win at the IACHR and urges U.S. citizens to "stop domestic violence in its tracks." Inspired by this decision, local governments are already making changes. Just last week, the Cincinnati City Council passed an ordinance declaring that freedom from domestic violence is a fundamental human right and that local governments have a responsibility to continue securing this right on behalf of their citizens. In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, watch this video and share it with your friends. With your support and advocacy, we can get one step closer to stopping the cycle of violence. Learn more about violence against women: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: domestic violence, Jessica Gonzales, Jessica Lenahan, video, violence against women
U.S. Senators to LGBT Youth: "It Gets Better"On Wednesday morning, 13 members of the U.S. Senate delivered a video message of hope and encouragement to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) young people across the country as part of the It Gets Better Project. Just as importantly, the senators committed themselves to working every day to bring about positive changes for LGBT people that will actually make their lives better, and our country a fairer and more just society.
The 13 senators who appear in the video are Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). The ACLU looks forward to working with these senators and all members of Congress to make life better for LGBT people, and especially LGBT youth, by (among other things) working to establish comprehensive non-discrimination protections for LGBT students in all public K-12 schools across the country through passage of the Student Non-Discrimination Act. In addition, the ACLU will continue to be a leading voice in Washington, D.C., for passage of long-delayed federal employment non-discrimination protections for LGBT workers and repealing the discriminatory and unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies federal respect for the marriages of gay and lesbian couples and needlessly harms their children and families. Learn more about LGBT youth: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: Al Franken, bullying, Chris Coons, Chuck Schumer, Dan Savage, Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin, discrimination, It Gets Better, Jeanne Shaheen, Kirsten Gillibrand, LGBT Youth, Maria Cantwell, Mark Udall, Richard Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown, U.S. Senators, video
San Francisco Giants Tell LGBT Youth: "It Gets Better"Yesterday, World Series champions the San Francisco Giants became the first professional sports team to contribute to the "It Gets Better" video project.
The Advocate reported last month that Giants spokeswoman Staci Slaughter said a video was in the works even before a Change.org petition gathered more than 6,500 signatures urging the baseball team to make a video. Speaking of firsts, the ACLU was among the first nationwide nonprofit organizations to contribute It Gets Better videos. Check them out here: From our Washington Legislative Office:
And from our national New York office:
Learn more about LGBT rights: Subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Tags: video |
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